A personal blog to share random thoughts about chess, religion, modern church trends, married life etc.
Importantly, and for the record, a word about the Zodiac year I've been allotted (see the 'complete profile'). I was sure it was the Great Panther, or Lion, or something like that, not Rabbit. Rabbit! Bloomin flippin ek', what is that mena mean? Surely a miscalculation.

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Küng and the deity of Jesus

I've been reading in various places that Küng has denied or at least questioned the divinity of Christ.

For example, the Encyclopaedia Britannica claims: "Küng's prolific writings questioned such traditional church doctrine as … the divinity of Christ"

But is this so? In his Existiert Gott? he writes: "Gerade die orthodoxe Trinitätslehre hat nie Gott und Jesus einfach identifiziert; gerade sie hielt am Realunterschied von Gott und Jesus fest" (744) - but this is, of course, not the same as denying Christ's divinity! A few pages later he adds that in the Pauline tradition, Christ is understood as the "bild Gottes, als das Ja Gottes" (748). And in John, Christ is known: "nicht nur als Wort Gottes, sondern indirekt als Gott gleich, ja als Herr und Gott" (749). He then goes on to affirm the "God from God" text of the Nicene Creed, qualifying himself only to say that he is not speaking of a "Zwei-Götter-Lehre" (749).

1 Comments:

Yes, I think you're right -- it's really a (deliberate?) misreading to say that he "denies the divinity" of Christ. In his massive early tome on The Incarnation of God (my favourite of his books), he already made his essential christological conceptions quite clear, and there's not even a hint here of any "denial" of Christ's divinity.

Certainly like most modern thinkers he doesn't conceive of christology along the lines of an antiquated "substance" ontology -- but if this amounted to a denial of Christ's deity, then the whole of modern theology would have to stand condemned!

About Me

Name: Chris Tilling

Location: London, United Kingdom

I am New Testament Tutor for St Mellitus College and St Paul's Theological Centre, London. In my postgraduate research (under the supervision of Max Turner) I’m working on a thesis that concerns the christological significance of the language Paul used to describe the relationship between risen Lord and believer. My blog, Chrisendom, is primarily occupied with biblical and theological themes – especially those Apostle Paul shaped, but I try as best as I can to squeeze in a decent amount of inappropriate baloney on the way. For more about me, click here for my interview with biblioblogs' Jim West.